My Lords, our Amendment 119E, seeks to put a global resettlement scheme on a statutory footing. In that sense, it is very similar to the new Dubs scheme, if I can call it that, for unaccompanied children. I also speak to Amendment 116, which was tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate.
The Government’s stated intention through this Bill is to prevent people risking their lives taking dangerous journeys to the UK, but instead of talking about differential treatment, inadmissible claims, pushbacks, offshoring, reinterpreting the convention and other measures, we should be talking about safe and legal routes. If a person fleeing conflict, torture and persecution has a safe route by which to get here, they will take it. If they do not, they will take other, dangerous routes. Suggesting that other measures have or may have any deterrent effect is frankly not an answer when there is no international evidence, and the Home Office has recognised that asylum seekers often have no choice in how they travel and face exploitation by organised crime groups. If the Government want people to travel here by safe, alternative routes and break the business model of the people smugglers, their efforts need to be focused on providing those routes, which the three amendments I refer to do.
I will concentrate the rest of my remarks, which will be brief, on resettlement schemes. The argument for the Dubs scheme has been made before and was made very powerfully again tonight by my noble friend Lord Dubs. Initially, the Dubs scheme, passed into law by a Conservative Government, was envisaged to take 3,000 unaccompanied children who had fled unimaginable horrors and were travelling or in refugee camps on their own. It has been said tonight that, in reality, the
scheme was capped at 480 children, and fewer children were actually resettled before the scheme was closed down. Where is the Government’s commitment to taking unaccompanied children who are in desperate need of safety? Does the Minister accept that, without this route, some children will have turned, and will continue to turn, to people smugglers instead?
Our earlier Amendment 114, Amendment 116 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate, and my Amendment 119E all deal with a global resettlement scheme. Amendment 119E seeks to put the UK resettlement scheme on a statutory footing and would require the Secretary of State to report annually to Parliament on the operation of the scheme and the number of people resettled under it. For now, it does not include a target, unlike Amendment 116. As the Opposition, we have raised concerns that the 5,000 people due to be resettled under the Afghan resettlement scheme may not be enough of a commitment in response to that crisis.
So there are questions about how a target would be designed, but the aim is the same as Amendment 116. It is, first, to create an active global resettlement scheme that can respond flexibly and at speed to needs, as they emerge; and, secondly, to ensure some kind of mechanism to hold the Government to account. This is to ensure the scheme is actually resettling people at the rates and numbers expected and is not simply announced in a press release then left to lie dormant or underperform.
Announcing the UK resettlement scheme, which was launched after the closure of the Syrian scheme, the then Home Secretary confirmed that
“the UK plans to resettle in the region of 5,000 of the world’s most vulnerable refugees in the first year of the new scheme”.
Since that announcement, as I understand it, the scheme has settled less than a fifth of that number each year, with an annual average of 770 people. How do the Government expect the other 4,230 of the world’s most vulnerable refugees each year to travel here? Do they expect them to go elsewhere or not go at all?
If we share the aim of ensuring people who are fleeing the worst can do so safely—and I am sure everyone in this House does—we need to work together to provide a reliable, active, responsive route to do so. Currently, the Bill is silent on this and, in answer to questions from the Commons, the Government gave no details about their plans. I hope the Minister is able to give more detail tonight.
The Government should, in this Bill or alongside it, commit to an expanded proactive resettlement route. The mechanism for doing that is provided in both Amendments 116 and 119E.